ABS light on after new tires installed
 

Hello,

My '86 300SDL has had always had an "occasional" ABS light problem -- once every few months when I start the car, the ANTILOCK light would stay on. Restarting the car would fix it. I know it's the OVP relay causing it, because when I clean the contacts & reinstall it, the problem goes away for a while. The 10A fuse was replaced a year or two ago.

Yesterday, I had snow tires installed. New tires were installed on the same rims (factory wheels) I had used all summer. When I start the car, the ABS light comes on. Most of the time, if I restart it, the light will go off (once or twice it continued to stay on).

The place I had the tires done were specialists and do much more complex cars than mine (ie. the Porsche dealer sends new 911 Turbos over for snow tires all the time). They jacked up all four corners at the lifting points with 3-ton shop jacks and dismounted/remounted all 4 wheels and torqued them properly.

Any ideas on what went weird? If they had hit or broken an ABS sensor or sensor wire, wouldn't the light stay on all the time not just when I start the car? Where are the potential damage areas when mounting wheels? I assume one sensor at each of four wheels, each with a wire coming from it? Seems a far stretch to me that mounting wheels could make these go weird -- the sensors look sturdy enough that you'd have to break them entirely for them to stop working!

Thanks!
Neal

'86 300SDL